Life In Color

But we already have a diaper bag...

Bj was a little confused when I told him this diaper bag was for us:

A girl's gotta have options! The pattern is Amy Butler's Nappy Bag and I love it! It is huge, yes, but it holds lots. An added bonus is using up my plethora of Hawaiian fabric I got the day Bj proposed. Does it look familiar? I'll send you a piece of it if you're the first one to guess why (mom, Sciarrino, Bj - don't give it away!). Agnes figured it out. I used it for curtains in the lower level (before it was demolished and put back together in a different configuration). Anyway I finished this up last night. Oh how I love my new machine. It made sewing a breeze. Also helpful was this new tool:

A handle for my acrylic grid ruler. I wish I had one of these when I was teaching Emilie, I kept thinking she was going to off one of her fingers. The inside of the bag:

I ended up only doing one bottle pocket so I could keep those two larger ones on the left. The other side with the pocket looks like this:

You can see my modification steps here. In the bag in this example I have a blanket, diaper cover, cloth diaper, dirty diaper bag, 2 burp rags, a couple of toys, a spare outfit, water spray bottle, cloth wipes, natural hand sanitizer, changing pad, lap pad, sun hat, shopping bag, digital camera, and extra nursing pads. Oh and teething tablets and a pad (for mama, but so far no aunt flow - stay away I say!). 

I used it today during our adventures with grandma:

We spent seven hours in Portland, and it was still very hot. We did a good job of keeping her cool, being in air conditioning 99% of the time, and letting her suck on an ice cube (wrapped in a napkin with a rubber band - a great trick!). Plus grandma couldn't resist and got her this new dress. She did SO AWESOME. She was quite the little shopping pal. If I had a nickel for everytime someone told me she has the brightest eyes, or is the most alert baby... This was just caught during some brief down time :) Anyway the diaper bag was great. I loved carrying it, and it stowed easily under the carriage as well. I give the pattern two thumbs up!

I wouldn't bet my life on it

A couple weeks ago Bj asked if while I was out I could pick up some custom spray paint to match our walls to paint the utility box cover. I was like, "um, they don't make custom spray paint." "Oh they don't," he said. "Ya, I'd bet my life on it." Well turns out they do! Oops. I was at the paint store with my friend and just happened to ask and what do you know, you can get custom tinted spray paint. At Sherwin Williams they have you buy a quart of oil based paint (you choose the finish - I got satin) and they make that into spray paint, at $8 a can. You have to buy a minimum of 3 cans. Worth it.

Ya, that gun on top. If you are even going to spray paint one little thing I highly recommend it. As the package states, "it eliminates finger fatigue" I don't know why but I find that very funny. Anyway we went from this:

Eyesore when you walk up the stairs (a little mucked up because the contractor tried to paint it with a roller then had to scrap it off). To this:

It really does blend well. I know it looks a little light in this picture. In truth it could use another coat. I really like the spray paint, but it does go on a little thin. The fact is:

It's FREAKING HOT OUT. And if I go out there I might melt, like my poor, in the shade, candles. Yesterday = 107, today 109?!?! We freak out about weather here, not rain. 40 days, 40 nights? No ark for us, but temps over a hundred or a little bit of snow? Bring on weather watch 9000. 

The sincerest form of flattery

I think everyone saw this coming except Bj:

oh no mom you didn't!

I know I'm just a big copy cat. But one who now has really nice pillows on her couch.

You win some, you loose some

Winning:

Sleepy time in the toddler seat. That's right after 6.5 months in the bassinet I finally caved and put the toddler seat on the stroller. It's still a little big, as you can see my little worm managed to get her arm out while walking. But the sunshade is much better, and I can sit her up a little if she likes. I would never have done this if she couldn't be facing me.

Because I like chatting with her oh so much. It is fun to point more things out to her this way. I was chatting it up for a while and when we turned the corner I lifted the inner sun shade a bit to check on her, she was out. So really I had been talking to myself, oh well :)

Loosing:

My attempts at cute thank you cards.

I guess she is still a little young for this idea.

Mmmm tasty cardstock, good thing it's acid free.

Happy Day

It's a sun shiney day here. Kisses from Tuesday!

A warmer welcome

Oh my goodness this took longer than I thought it would. I envisioned an evening of putting furniture together, spray painting a table and dressing up the porch. After three goes at the bench, and a little bit of tub soaking, multiple spray paint "issues" and the quickest planting ever the porch is dressed!

I love it so much, it's exactly the kind of outdoor room I was hoping for.

The table was really what held up this project. It was a rusty whitish estate sale find and I figured an easy spray paint make over. Well not only did I not bother to sand it (so I may be painting it again in the future), but I taped it all up only to realize that it had to be taken apart to fully be painted. I also completely forgot I had one of those awesome spray paint guns and got black spray paint all over myself and a cramped finger as a result. But today Sciarrino came over and watched Tuesday and I got it put back together. Thank goodness the chairs (which I also thrifted) were already painted black. Table cloth, tray, and lamp were all from recent thrifting.

Earlier in the week Bill came over to help me put together my Christmas present, this awesome bench. It only took us three tries. He pointed out that if we had more benches to put together we would be golden for the next ones. So I guess we're go to bench assemblers now. Meanwhile my mom and Tuesday were hanging out watching us and staying cool. 

The water baby loved bathing in here. I'm keeping the bin out and full of pillows when not in use by cute little babies:

It was thrifted (I know, shocker). The rug is from Costco. I love it, it is super soft, made from recycled pop bottles. I was originally going to look for a woven type, but this is much nicer for Tutu to play on, and was so much less expensive.

To the right of the door. This old produce stand (I think) has been a few different things in my house (packaging materials for ribbon jar, winter gloves/scars hold, among others), but I think it looks best out here. The planter was given to me by my mom and I love how it's aged:

Tuesday and I have hung out here everyday this week, it's lovely in the afternoon when the sun has ducked behind the house. I can be out when my neighbors come home from work so Tuesday can see all her friends.

I once again have to thank my friend Matt for coming up with the design of this porch. It totally has changed the look of our house. Since you can't really see our addition from the front it is the most drastic change people notice. Many of my neighbors have come up to me this week to comment on it, I think they are as glad as us to have it done!

Passing it on

I used to get together with my little sister, Emilie, once a week - until I had Tuesday. It was too hard for me to get to Emilie's school on time and pick her up with a not so fond of the car baby in the backseat. Plus I never knew what Tuesday would be doing at any one time of the day (hmm I still don't!), so I couldn't plan things. Well I figured it was about time to remedy that and invited her to hang out with Tuesday and I for the day today. Did I mention she got her license so she drove over here? Makes it a lot easier. I'm always doing projects with Emilie, usually of the scrapbooking variety, but I decided the girl has got to learn to sew, and the lady who sold me my machine said it was easy to teach with because it can be set to so very very slow (She was so right, it worked great for this. Plus who doesn't love that scissors button?). 

I had Emilie do everything: pick any fabric she wanted, iron it, square it up and cut the pieces with a rotary cutter, pin and sew. She did so great! She even had to do a little algebra to figure out how big each back piece should be if we wanted a 12 inch overlap (which I've since learned is a bit too much). X + X + 12 = 24.5 FUN FUN FUN! What? I had to throw a little extra learning in there :) She figured out how much yardage she needed. She was so careful and steady. She chose to do a really big 24 x 24 pillow cover and she kept the speed pretty slow and never really let herself wonder, very straight seams. I was so proud. 

My first sewing project was not quite so classy. I always wanted to get ahead of myself, and tried to sew barbie clothes, among other things. Children should not sew Barbie clothes, they are tough! Check out the hemming:

Ah I think I've just made a new little sewing friend, yes! 

Why did this take me so long to figure out?

I finally have the skill to make a pillow case that fits over a pillow form. People, sewing doesn't get easier than this. But for some reason I could never make a snug one. I'm going to blame it on my old machine. Because following this easy tutorial I whipped up these:

Pillow cases with envelope backs:

The added bonus is using up some of the cutter quilt that I scored a LONG time ago (so long ago I can't find a post about it, yikes). That sure clears out fabric storage space (I know what you're thinking Bj, don't worry no packages are coming to fill that space, I really am trying to work down the stash!). 

All new sleep methods

Bj and I have been having fun putting Tuesday to sleep lately. You read that correctly, FUN. We've instituted family quiet time up in her room before bed and she loves it. I love it. Bj loves it. We play with little bells, a xylophone, and other favorite toys. We also read her at least one story. We added a fun new feature called "not nursing her to sleep." It doesn't always go as planned:

Oh man we were laughing so hard. She just starts trying to suck my face off, my shirt, arm, or anything else she can get her mouth on. 

Last night I tried a completely different approach:

Popcorn, Diet Dr. Pepper and a movie! Well, not so much with the tasty treats, but the good friends and movie part. I took Tuesday for a girl's night at the drive in. I love our local drive in, and when Sciarrino invited me to go I figured "what's the worse that could happen?" I also had the thought that I might not otherwise get to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince for a very very long time. So we loaded her up, lots of toys and other baby goodies and headed to Dallas. She fell asleep before the movie even really started. I wore my nursing pillow and sat in the back of the CRV. After I nursed her (and nursed her and nursed her). I just kept her on my lap where she slept. The only time she got upset was on the way home, she did not like being in her carseat after a nice mama lap siesta. As an added bonus to a late night at the drive in we slept in until 9:45, um, SCORE! 

not lettuce

Bj made delicious panini for dinner last night.

I wanted to tell him job well done:

Me: "Bj these are so good, I would have never thought to put cabbage on here."

Bj: "I didn't use cabbage this is your organic lettuce."

Me: "I'm pretty sure this is cabbage."

Bj takes a bite, "Well where did I put the lettuce?"

No wonder he kept telling me that my organic lettuce was a waste of money because it was weird.